Communication via the well-known Internet Protocol (IP) may require translation (resolution) of an IP address into a “lower layer” address such as an Ethernet address. For this purpose, one or more tables may be maintained to allow look-up of the lower layer address on the basis of the IP address. It is customary to maintain an indication in such a table or tables as to whether there has been recent activity using the lower layer address. If there has not been recent activity for a particular IP address, an ARP (address resolution protocol) request may be generated to determine a current lower layer address for the IP address in question.
According to some conventional practices, the indication of activity with regard to an IP address is updated in the table entry corresponding to the IP address upon transmission of a data message (e.g., a data packet) to the IP address. It has also been proposed that the indication of activity for an IP address be updated upon receipt of a data message from a device having the IP address. However, this may require additional table searches that may interfere with table searching activity required for transmission of outbound messages.